This is the eleventh article in a series on common usability and graphical user interface related terms. On the internet, and especially in forum discussions like we all have here on OSNews, it is almost certain that in any given discussion, someone will most likely bring up usability and GUI related terms - things like spatial memory, widgets, consistency, Fitts' Law, and more. The aim of this series is to explain these terms, learn something about their origins, and finally rate their importance in the field of usability and (graphical) user interface design. After a rather long hiatus, this eleventh instalment will focus on bling, desktop effects, and compositing, and what they can contribute to the desktop experience.

What happens if you have more than four desktops? Six, you say? But a cube's sides have equal dimensions. The "cube" is not even a cube. It is a rectangular prism. Turn its top or bottom faces toward you, and I don't think you will end up with what you want.

I don't know about compiz, but kwin has started to address these issues :

I don't know if that makes the cube effect more usefull for those who don't use it (including me) but it is not as these are difficulties which are inherently impossible to overcome.

EDIT: What I mean with the last sentence warrants a little clarification, me thinks:

There are obviously problems in this domain, that are inherently impossible to overcome. For example, I can have all kind of weird pager layouts with a multitude of virtual desktops, yet mapping it onto platonic bodies or prismas is not always possible in a way to keep the neighborhood conditions of the grid layout alive.

The approach of kwin seems to be a sensible middle ground, e.g. distinguishing between the cube as a method to iterate over random virtual desktops or as a method to animate the switch between two distinct virtual desktops.

The latter is easier to keep consistent with the "spatial" layout of virtual desktops